For patients suffering from a variety of injuries or disease states such as ulcers, wounds caused by amputations, ischemia, peripheral vascular diseases, etc., monitoring a patient's pulse and/or blood flow at or near an afflicted area may provide valuable insight for medical professionals regarding a patient's condition and prognosis.
Traditional methods of performing pulse monitoring, however, include the use of pulse oximeters. But pulse oximeters only provide information regarding a patient's pulse at the extremity in which it is used, such as a patient's finger, for example, and do not provide pulse information at an afflicted area. Pulse oximeters are also limited in that they do not provide information regarding a patient's blood flow or spatio-temporal features.
Furthermore, conventional volumetric blood flow imaging equipment does not typically allow for real-time viewing of hemodynamic data due to the complexity of the processing involved in such measurements. These imaging systems also lack the ability to display information regarding spatio-temporal features, such as how the blood flow changes in one or more portions of a tissue over time.
As a result, portable and non-invasive systems that measure blood flow, pulse, and/or spatio-temporal features present several challenges.